Malware attacks continue to employ an ever increasing array of techniques to gain control of processing devices and/or to make unauthorized accesses to the data stored therein. Concern has grown that, in processing devices incorporating multiple hardware components that are capable of independent execution of instructions, malware (e.g., viruses, worms, etc.) may be employed to gain control over one of such hardware components, and to then cause that component to improperly retrieve and/or manipulate data and/or executable instructions associated with another of such hardware components.
More specifically, in processing devices incorporating a main processor component and one or more other hardware components capable of executing instructions independently of the main processor component, concern is growing that the instructions executed by one of such other hardware components may be compromised to cause it to access storage spaces associated with the main processor component. In so doing, such a hardware component may be caused to improperly retrieve data from such storage spaces for retransmission elsewhere, and/or may be caused to alter executable instructions that are to be executed by the main processor component as a mechanism to gain control over the main processor component.